


enter the firestarter

by devonair



Series: rebel-king starkiller [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Force Unleashed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Does Not Follow Force Unleashed II, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Galen lives, Gen, Over the Sound of Me Wrecking Canon, Tentative Title, Timeline What Timeline, What Was That I Couldn't Hear You, more for me than anything else, okay here goes nothing, ongoing project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-01 11:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13997325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devonair/pseuds/devonair
Summary: The Force has to be firmly on Starkiller's side, because otherwise there was no way for him to have survived his battle with the Emperor. But he lives to see his Rebellion catch fire, and he will do everything in his power to keep it aflame.





	1. luminous is he; but not dead, not yet

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I'm actually doing this, but here goes. 
> 
> A couple notes for starters:
> 
> a) I AM GOING TO MESS UP THE TIMELINES. A LOT. Because heck, rearranging things is hard. I appreciate any help y'all can offer me, haha. 
> 
> b) Galen is going to not be as powerful as he is in-game. Personally, I see his strength and the forgiving physics engine as a way to make gameplay more fun. He's still a toughie, though. Just not edging into OP territory and yanking Star Destroyers out of the sky as a hobby, you dig?
> 
> c) I haven't seen much of Rebels and so the Ghost crew isn't going to be around much I think? I'm in the process of watching, but between you and me, I like TCW way better.
> 
> d) Reviews are my sustenance! Please let me know if you liked it!

* * *

 

**Srarkiller did not believe in fate.**

 

Since everything he’d been through – since Juno, since Kota, since Kashyyyk and the Corellian Treaty and the dawning resolve to be the person his Master never wanted him to be – he’d been a firm believer in one’s ability to choose their own path, completely independent of kismet or the will of the Force or whatever one wanted to call it.

But last he remembered, he had been locked in a stalemate with Darth Sidious, the Emperor and Sith Lord – he’d known that he wouldn’t survive, he’d known he wasn’t _that_ strong… and he had accepted that. He recalled lightning searing itself through his body and the stabbing fear that _the others weren’t going to make it_ , and then a sense of nothingness.

And after that chasm devoid of anything, when he had been convinced that this was the end and he was gone? He could still _sense_ things. He could barely register the voice of a smooth-voiced medical droid, the whirr of machinery, the cool weight of bacta patches – a completely bizarre thing to parse following the death that should’ve-but-didn’t happen.

He didn’t feel alive, per se, but he could take in enough to know that he wasn’t dead. He’d survived. Somehow.

Now it was, he realized, too fortunate to have been _luck._ No one survived two consecutive Sith battles and an explosion armed only with _luck._ Then maybe – just maybe, for whatever reason – the Force was looking out for him after all.

 

* * *

  ** _Act One:_ ** **_A Fox to Recognize Traps, and a Lion to Frighten the Wolves_**

* * *

 


	2. this isn't a game played for glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pilot doesn't mean anything, in the grand scheme of things. But the boy does - she knows that. And she knows, very well, that he will be a storm when he wakes up.

* * *

**[2 BBY; hyperspace]**

**_"Kota! PROXY, where’s – no, no,_ no  _–”_**

 

His voice echoed panicked and sleep-dulled through the halls of the _Equilibria,_ and Casey bit her lip in worry. For weeks he had been like this, ever since she’d been introduced to him. One moment still and paler than death, and the next hyperventilating, calling out in his sleep for the ones he cared about. In her time spent transporting and minding the young man, he had never actually woken up, and that in itself was very troubling when she remembered that he was supposed to be the most powerful young man General Kota had ever met.

She switched the ship to autopilot and stretched; flying was wonderful, of course, but not for hours at a time. Grabbing a ration bar from one of her pockets, she stood and made for the small medbay where her charge spent all his time. The screaming hadn’t stopped. Sometimes it didn’t, for hours, and he couldn’t be given enough sedatives to calm him without it having serious drawbacks.

A familiar bubble of anger welled in her chest. A mother she was not, by no means, but the thought of such trauma resting on the shoulders of one so young definitely rubbed her the wrong way.

Stars, he was only _seventeen_.

“Still nothing?” Casey asked as she entered the room. AX-287 was the closest thing a droid could get to the nagging, harried doctor, and she suspected that he would have had a head of grey hair had he been human.

“If by that you mean the boy has shown no signs of waking any time soon, then yes,” Ax replied in a voice that somehow conveyed his exasperation through the standardly calm, even tones, “still nothing.”

The droid’s optics lasered in on Casey’s hand as she ran it gently over the young man’s scruffy head of dark hair. There was a silence much like all the other silences they shared, the three of them. None of them had the particular need to speak, after all – excepting Casey, who had put up with quiet for the past three days and needed to periodically make some noise to keep herself sane.

“Starkiller,” she huffed out, tracing the pads of her fingers across his sharp features. “That’s an intense name he was given, don’t you think? He doesn’t look like a Starkiller.”

“Hm, I’m sure his past victims would agree,” Ax tossed back, double checking the monitors for the fifth time.

Casey huffed. “Yeah, yeah.” Snarky as he was, he was right. Starkiller was supposed to be deadly, though it was hard to think so when she’d only seen him dead to the world, tossing fitfully against his nightmares.

Shifting slightly, Casey fingered the comlink she wore, reluctant to leave but knowing that her staying would do no good. She had things to do, sure – she had to check in with Organa, and find the next temporary base to take on new medical supplies, and not allow herself to be angry with the Empire for putting this _kid_ into a coma.

“Technically, his condition doesn’t qualify as a coma,” Ax murmured matter-of-factly – they’d had the discussion before, and he knew she was going to comment on it. “It’s very unusual; he moves, and he calls out in his sleep, and comatose patients do not. But his brainwaves are reminiscent of one deep in a coma, and he exhibits most of the signs; it’s a condition entirely new to me, and I assure you that I am collecting as much information as possible on the matter.”

“I don’t doubt you, buddy,” Casey sighed, folding her arms. “I just – it’s a Force thing, it’s got to be a Force thing.”

“Ah.” His tone was curt, and she half-smiled; Ax was pretty up there in years for a droid, and she’d learned that he _vastly_ preferred cut-and-dry physical ailments to the less concrete Jedi ones.

In the quiet, she could hear the beeping from the cockpit that signaled an incoming projection – an indisputable push for her to return to the tasks she had at hand. She sighed. Best not to worry, right? Especially about a boy she’d never met, whose real name she didn’t know, whose eye color she was not even familiar with.

“You should take that,” Ax said helpfully, and she rolled her eyes and leaned forward toward the unresponsive teenager.

“Mm-hmm,” she said to the droid. Then to the boy: “I’ll be back, soon. Don’t wake up without me, alright? But don’t you dare stay stuck in your head, either. You’re a tough kid, Starkiller.”

Giving his shoulder a squeeze – more for herself than him, really – she nudged Ax and turned to leave the medbay.

“He likely won’t wake up without you,” the med droid felt the need to tack on, “so while the sentiment is well-intentioned, it hardly matters.”

“Shove off,” she replied primly, “I was being nice.”

As she finished off the ration bar she’d forgotten about earlier, Casey sat down heavily in the pilot’s seat and turned her attention to the holoprojector. The familiar figure of one of the fledgling rebellion’s cornerstones filled the dashboard, and she smiled despite herself.

“Bail,” she greeted warmly. Then, less warmly, “ _Please_ tell me you’ve found a fixed safe spot for this kid. I’m really bonding with him and all – he’s got a great personality, magnetic – but I don’t have the medical equipment to do anything _beyond_ keeping him stable.”

“I’d like to remind you to adhere to our aliases, Graveyard, just in case,” Organa chided lightly, and she winced. He sighed a second later though, long and heavy and resigned. “Though this is a secure enough channel, I suppose.” He paused, running his hands through his hair, brow taut with concern, and honestly, she could relate.

“We do have a location for you, yes. It will take time, though – he is an extremely vital asset to the Empire, and his disappearance from the wreckage will not go unnoticed. It’s a very delicate situation, I’m sure you understand.”

Casey nodded, placing a fist under her chin and clenching her jaw. The _Empire._

“I’m – _stars_ , Bail, I look at him and I know what happened and what he had to go through and I just… I want to hurt someone, you know? It takes so much for me to keep from committing murder. I want to run Vader through with his own lightsaber, I…” Here she inhaled deeply, trying to clear the red haze beginning to creep in at the edges of her vision. “Children are _sacred_ ,” she said with finality.

Bail watched her outburst with an expression of bemused concern, and something edging on faint alarm. She did, after all, tend to keep her anger in check. It was just…

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve just been angry. Out of sorts lately, ever since…”

She paused. Well. There was no need for melodrama – they’d all lost someone. She was no special case.

Realization pricked at his face, and his eyes were soft with sympathy when he looked at her. He wouldn’t have known right away; there had been too many deaths for him to know right away.

“I am truly sorry about your husband,” the senator murmured quietly, and she bit her lip hard. He had no reason to be, and she told him as such.

“Windsor did what he had to,” she replied with the sort of grim, bitter decisiveness that only a grieving widow could ever possess. “And so will I. I have a bone to pick with the Empire, Bail. And if keeping this boy alive will help to bring the Emperor to ruin, then I will walk through all nine Corellian hells to see him safe. You have my word.”

“And I believe that.” The senator nodded, looking just as determined as she felt. “You’ll have the coordinates within the next few rotations. If all goes well, I will meet you there. May the Force be with you, Casey Graves.”

She smiled, thinly, and returned the dying aphorism.

“And with you as well.”


	3. his rebellion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy finally opens his eyes, in a quiet medbay, to a world revolting against the Empire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY LISTEN.
> 
> The plan was to make this entire project a loooong fic. But I realized that I'd much rather work with shorter pieces and bundle them all together, you dig? A giant Galen Lives AU. 
> 
> So yeah! This is just the intro piece.
> 
> Next up, hopefully: a short series covering the reverse-grip wielders in the "Anakin Skywalker Sucks at Apprentices" Club.

* * *

**[1 BBY; a well-equipped and terribly sterile medbay on an undisclosed planet]**

It took moments – months – _centuries?_ – for the constant dull black against his senses to finally lift. He could taste the antiseptic in the air and he could feel thin sheets beneath his fingers (his fingers were responding now; he gathered the fabric into his fists). But what was most startling in the moment was that this time, his eyes obediently opened, and he could see for the first time in… in _how_ long? How long had he been out? What had happened since he’d thrown himself in Kota’s way and yelled at him to take the others and _run?_

Things came back to him, piece by piece. He remembered his choice, following the absurd sting of betrayal Vader gave him. The resolution settling in his chest that clearly said _I am Galen Marek, and I will be a Jedi_ with every beat of his heart. He realized now that the sentiment was incomplete.

_I will be a Jedi like my father._

He remembered his robes, clean and new like he’d never been, and his ’saber that glowed blue in place of red.

And the kiss (soft and surprising and rushed and intense).

And the girl.

“Juno,” he rasped. Where had his voice gone? _“Juno.”_

Of all the people he could have wanted near at the moment, to help him make sense of everything, it would always be her. Always and especially after everything she’d done for him.

The replying voice at the doorway was familiar, but it was not Juno’s. Galen looked up, wincing against the incredible soreness in his neck and shoulders, and locked eyes with a haggard looking Rahm Kota.

Galen clearly remembered the man looking less terrible that time he’d been plastered in the cantina.

“My boy.” The two words were hushed, and he wondered for a moment if the Jedi had meant to say them out loud. “You’re awake.”

“And you look like a rancor stepped on your face,” Galen replied without thinking. He’d just fallen back into the banter routine they’d developed, no big deal. He couldn’t quite comprehend why Kota looked strangely misty-eyed for a half-second.

“Of course it would’ve hurt you to be a little civil,” the older man faux-grumbled, folding his arms and leaning against the doorjamb. His mouth quirked up, and Galen had to take a moment to realized that he looked older than when he’d last seen him.

He hesitated for a half-second, ranking everything he didn’t know in order of importance. The last thing he recalled was the lightning, and the sense that _finally_ , he was doing something good.

“Juno,” he remembered, and set his jaw. “The senators. Where are they?”

“Well, they’re alive, thanks to you. They’re keeping busy. Your pilot girl is fine, too – last I checked she was flying out needed supplies in the Mid Rim.”

He’d expected nothing less from the senators, but the mention of the Mid Rim had him furrowing his brow. It didn’t make sense for her to be there so soon after his drop to the Death Star. From the kiss she’d given him, he’d have supposed that she would have waited for him, as long as she could. He hadn’t thought she would take off so – oh. It wasn’t a short cat-nap he’d been taking. Right.

Which led him to his next concern.

“How long have I been out?”

Kota frowned. If he didn’t know any better, Galen would say that he was deliberating on whether or not he should tell the truth. That in itself put him on edge, and he sat up straighter, legs tensing for action the way they had on that sun-bound medical facility.

The silver-haired Jedi made up his mind, and his eyes hardened.

“Since your sacrificial lion stunt?” He laughed, without humor. “Fifteen months.”

Thinking retrospectively, he wasn’t sure what he would have expected the answer to be. A few weeks. Maybe even a few months – it had happened before. But an entire year?

Galen leaned back a bit, anything he may have said in response dead on his tongue. It hadn’t felt like such a long time, not from the perspective of haze and dark that he’d grown familiar with.

The silver-haired man watched him with an intensity that contradicted his blindness, chin lifted to receive his reaction.

Finally, the words came together into a query.

“What happened.” 

Or, rather, a flat, quiet statement with the suggestion of inquiry clinging to it.

“You…” The older man huffed out a breath. “I could barely believe it, myself. It’s been –”

“ _Kota._ What happened.”

Impaired and exhausted though he may have been – and it may have been Galen’s own blade that made him so – Kota also did not have the time or the energy to put up with his worry-born impatience. He sighed, mild exasperation and something a bit like a challenge sparking in his face.

“You died, alright? And your death was an inspiration. Political leaders everywhere, and just about every single commoner behind them; Organa, Mothma, your pilot girl, entire _civilizations_ … everyone’s lining up to rally against the Empire. We have cells all over the place now, kid, and some days it really does look like we’ve got what it takes. Your sacrifice is what started this rebellion _burning.”_ He shook his head, distant disbelief flickering fire-like on his face as if he were channeling that old first reaction to the burgeoning rebel force. It was nearly, possibly, could-have-been a sort of bliss, a nostalgia of sorts; then it was replaced by a seriousness that shadowed his face as he rummaged in his pocket.

“This,” Kota said, tossing a small, glinting object across the room. Galen caught it neatly in his hands, instinctively. “Was the good-luck token of the pilot who kept you safe and out of Empire hands until we could get you to this base. She kept it pinned to her chest until the end. It’s the image that she and thousands of others have stood behind, and to them, it represents _hope._ ”

It was a small pin, roughly cut out of sheet metal and painted with something acrylic and glossy. The token was hastily made, but obviously well-loved – though that wasn’t what had Galen’s breath catching as he held it like a precious thing between his fingers.

The swirls of faded reds and oranges made up the familiar shape of the crest dotted around his home in Kashyyyk. He could faintly recall the wooden representation of the image inscribed on a sign near his house, and the ghost-pressure of his much younger hand tracing it and committing it to memory.

Just holding the pin, staring down at the small painting, Galen could almost physically feel the barrier holding back his memories _give_ – slightly. Just enough for him to know how important it was.

His father had shown it to him, regaling him with stories and memories attached to the crest – _“this symbol represents us, Galen, and our connection to the living Force. Be proud of that.”_ It had been the first thing he’d learned to draw. It…

Galen closed his eyes, willing his emotions to settle, just a bit. He realized his fingers were trembling.

He’d known as he fell to the core of the Death Star that rebellion was going to be the only option for the galaxy. But looking at the symbol it took, his family’s coat-of-arms, Galen Marek felt that this was _his_ rebellion.


End file.
